Ghent was occupied by the Germans in both World Wars but escaped severe destruction and was liberated by the British 7th Desert Rats Armoured Division on September 6, 1944.

In Desert Rats ( 1953 ), Burton plays a young English captain in the North African campaign during World War II who takes charge of a hopelessly out-numbered Australian unit against the indomitable Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ( James Mason ).

In Hollywood, Rafferty also appeared in Australian themed films, including The Desert Rats, The Sundowners and Mutiny on the Bounty.

His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar ( 1953 ), Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, the amoral valet turned spy in Joseph Mankiewicz's 5 Fingers, the declining actor in the first remake of A Star Is Born ( 1954 ), Captain Nemo in 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea ( also 1954 ), a small town school teacher driven insane by the effects of cortisone in Bigger Than Life ( 1956 ), a suave master spy in North by Northwest ( 1959 ), a determined explorer in Journey to the Center of the Earth ( also 1959 ), Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita ( 1962 ), a river pirate who betrays Peter O ' Toole's character in Lord Jim ( 1965 ), the evil Doctor Polidori in Frankenstein: The True Story ( 1973 ), the vampire's servant, Richard Straker, in Salem's Lot, and surreal Royal Navy Captain Hughes in Yellowbeard ( 1983 ).

* The Desert Rats ( 1953 )

Greene was discharged in December 1944 and appeared in the stage plays Desert Rats and I Capture the Castle.

A large section of bare desert land on the north side of Antonio Street near the 1400 – 1600 block is designated to become a soccer field complex with at least 4 fields and home to the Anthony Desert Rats soccer team.

It was part of the " Divisional Troops " of the 7th Armoured Division ( known as the " Desert Rats ").

: Desert Rats redirects here.

As alternatives to Chatterton or Mr Chadwick as the origin of the name Chad, REME claimed that the name came from their training school, nicknamed " Chad's Temple ", the RAF claimed it arose from Chadwick House at a Lancashire radio school, and the Desert Rats claimed it came from an officer in El Alamein.

In May 2006 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats were relieved by 20th Armoured Brigade under the command of Brigadier James Everard.

The regiment is currently based in Bad Fallingbostel, British Forces Germany, as part of the 7th Armoured Brigade (' The Desert Rats ').

In October 1990 The Staffordshire Regiment was deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of 7th Armoured Brigade, better known as the ' Desert Rats '.

Initially based at Tidworth, the battalion moved to Bad Fallingbostel, Germany in August 2009, where it is now permanently based as part of 7th Armoured Brigade ( The Desert Rats ).

* Moreman, Timothy Robert, Anderson, Duncan, Desert Rats: British 8th Army in North Africa 1941-43, Osprey Publishing, 2007.

Although there was pressure from London for the reconstituted Desert Rats to go into action, outfitting for the desert and training delayed their first use until Operation Battleaxe, an attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk in June.

* Panzer Grenadier: Desert Rats

The last of the Zoo's Central Rock Rats were sent to Alice Springs Desert Park in 2007 and the breeding program closed.

* The Desert Rats ( 1953 )

He was a Second Lieutenant in the British 7th Armoured Division, called " the Desert Rats ".

In W. W. II 9 Bty fired both 25 pdrs and 105mm SP, with 3rd Field Bde, 11th Army Field Regt, 1st Canadian Corps Artillery, both in Italy, where at one time they were part of the 8th Army, the “ Desert Rats ”, and later in Northwest Europe as part of the 1st Canadian Army Artillery.

* The Desert Rats, nickname for the British 7th Armoured Division

* The Desert Rats, 1953 war film starring Richard Burton

However, Bethlehem is affected also by annual waves of hot, dry, sandy and dust Khamaseen winds from the Arabian Desert, during April, May and mid-June.

* Valkenburgh, Richard Van Long Walk by Very Slim Man, Desert Magazine, April, 1946

Arafat narrowly escaped death again on 7 April 1992, when an Air Bissau aircraft he was a passenger on crash-landed in the Libyan Desert during a sandstorm.

* April 11 – Aviator Bill Lancaster takes off in England, in an attempt to make a speed record to the Cape of Good Hope, but vanishes ( his body is not found in the Sahara Desert until 1962 ).

He was twice a castaway on Desert Island Discs – first in April 1954 in tandem with Richard Murdoch and then on his own in January 1961.

* Anniversary Special ( ISBN 0-563-52853-2 ) of Three programmes: " 30th Anniversary Special ", " Sorry I Haven't A Desert Island ", and the first episode broadcast ( 11 April 1972 )

On April 1, 2007, Sheen was arrested, with 38 other activists, for trespassing at the Nevada Test Site at a Nevada Desert Experience event protesting the site.

On 1 April 1424, Yongle launched a large campaign into the Gobi Desert to chase a nuisance army of fleeting Tatars.

( Refs: George Martin speaking on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs ; The Independent, Nov 3 2004 ; the " Queen-Days of our Lives " documentary screened by BBC4 in April 2012.

* Paul E. Funk, Lieutenant General, U. S. Army, Retired, commander of the 3d Armored Division from December 1990 to April 1991, during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in Middle East, was born here.

Louis died of cardiac arrest in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas on April 12, 1981, just hours after his last public appearance viewing the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick Heavyweight Championship.

* The Desert Song ( Sigmund Romberg )-London production opened at the Drury Lane Theatre on April 7 and ran for 432 performances

She was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in April 2008.

The Germans were given the opportunity to reinforce the Italians in North Africa with the Afrika Korps and by the end of April the weakened Western Desert Force had been pushed all the way back to the Egyptian border, leaving Tobruk under siege.

Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, FRS OBE, ( 3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990 ) was the founder and first commander of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group during World War II.

After the Italian forces in North Africa had been reinforced with the Africa Corps during Operation Sonnenblume, Lieutenant General Philip Neame, General Officer Commanding Cyrenaica, was captured during Rommel's advance and the Western Desert Force HQ was reactivated on 14 April, under Major General Noel Beresford-Peirse, to take command of British Commonwealth forces in the western desert and halt the Axis advance at the Egyptian-Libyan border.

Two men ( both old friends of Kingsford Smith ) — Keith Vincent Anderson and Henry Smith ' Bobby ' Hitchcock, in their Westland Widgeon plane named Kookaburra — crash landed in the Tanami Desert in Central Australia and died of thirst and exposure on 12 April 1929 while on their way to help with the search.

" Bill " Lancaster who vanished on 11 April 1933 over the Sahara Desert ; Lancaster's remains were not found until 1962.

The Discovery Desert was opened in April 2009, and was designed to give the family of Meerkats more room to roam, and ensure they don't dig for freedom.

Late in the afternoon of April 24, 1980, eight RH-53D helicopters flew from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to a remote road serving as an airstrip in the Great Salt Desert of Eastern Iran, near Tabas.

* April 3 – The prototype of the Bombardier Challenger 600 crashes in the Mojave Desert in California, killing its pilot.

* Andrea Sachs, " Arcosanti: A ' City ' Grows Green in the Arizona Desert ", Washington Post, April 20, 2008

On 23 April they set off, following the Cooper downstream and then heading out into the Strzelecki Desert towards Mount Hopeless.

On 1 April, three weeks before the operation, a USAF combat control team officer, Major John T. Carney Jr., was flown in a Twin Otter to the Desert One site by two CIA officers for a clandestine survey of an airstrip.